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Il-2 '46's new supermod!
By 33LIMA,
The Community User Patch (CUP) is now available, via SAS
There have been various flavours of mod for the venerable but still outstanding IL-2 1946. Now there's a new kid on the Il-2 block and you can read all about it on the Special Aircraft Service site, here.
This new mod brings together and builds on three of the best things to happen to Il-2 in recent years - the Dark Blue World mod (DBW), IMHO much the best Il-2 add-on for Single Player use; The Full Monty mod (TFM), which was another must-have but something of a headache to download and install; and the work of Team Daidalos, whose work has improved several core features of the sim, notably the Artificial Intelligence.
Now all three are brought togther in a new evolution, the Community User Patch. There's still quite a lot to download but (i) not as much (ii) there's a torrent option and (iii) installation is just a matter of unzipping stuff into a clean Il-2 install patched to 4.12. When done you have the ultimate set of planes and maps for IL-2 from WW1 through to the jet age, compatible with the latest, TD AI and features.
CUP also includes a great set of extra mods which you can enable at will, notably one which lets you choose many more maps in the Quick Mission Builder, whereas the stock sim's choices were quite limited. You can be over sunny Spain one mission, enjoying the breeze in your open cockpit, and shivering over the wintry Ardennes, the next.
And of course there's the Pacific Theatre, with many new ships, to which you can do various nasty things.
I'm not sure which existing campaigns - notably the many great ones available over at that great resource for things IL-2, Mission4Today - will work with this and which would need tweaked, but there are some good (presumably stock) campaigns which seem to work fine with CUP, including one of my favourites, 'Blinding Sun':
So...why are you still sitting there, reading this? Go get it!
Steel Fury - the stock campaign
By 33LIMA,
Refighting the Second Battle of Kharkov in Graviteam's classic WW2 tanksim!
Despite acquiring Steel Fury - Kharkov 1942 (SF) not long after release, I only started seriously playing the tanksim years later, when modders added more (especially later-war) AFVs and generally extended SF's scope beyond the Second Battle of Kharkov in early summer 1942. So I never got around to playing the stock SF campaigns…until recently, when I decided it was a shame not to give them a tryout, at least. So that's what I did, and here's how it went!
The real battle
The First Battle of Kharkov in the Ukraine was fought in autumn 1941 during Operation Barbarossa, when the German 6th Army (later destroyed at Stalingrad) captured the city. The Second Battle - the one featured in SF - came in early summer 1942. Having thown the Germans back from the gates of Moscow over the winter of 1941-2, the Red Army's next major offensive came further south, in May 1942, with ferocious (and initially successful) concentric attacks aimed at retaking Kharkov. However, the Wehrmacht - including once more 6th Army - had been planning an attack of their own, code-named Operation Fredericus. With these forces, the Germans soon stopped and then rolled back and utterly crushed the Soviets, who had, it seems, overestimated their capabilities and underestimated those of the still-formidable Wehrmacht. A more durable and decisive victory over the Germans would have to wait…for about six months, as it turned out. The Red Army had learnt its lesson and the next big offensive, when it came, would see the tables turned and 6th Army annihilated at Stalingrad. But as far as the Second Battle of Kharkov went, the laurels belonged to the Wehrmacht. While SF does support campaigns - and I believe you can create a player profile for each - there's nothing like M1 Tank Platoon II's crew management facility. You will see your crew members moving around inside, and sitting at open hatches of, your tank. But they and the crews of your other platoon tanks ('wingmen' if you like) are annonymous. You can review each tank's/crew's achievements at the end of each mission - but that's about it. Each campaign is basically a sequence of scripted missions which, reasonably enough, follow the course of the actual battle, which you cannot change. So if you're rooting for the RKKA - the Red Army of Peasants and Workers - well, you can destroy all the fascists you like, but it's still gonna end in tears before bedtime. Sorry, tovaritch. Better luck at Stalingrad. Unit affiliation isn't a big thing with Steel Fury. Whereas the campaigns in Ultimation's classic Panzer Commander placed you from the start in a famous tank division (complete with formation insignia in the campaign selection screen) in SF you learn which unit you're with, when you see the first mission briefing. So it's all a bit anonymous, with no real sense of role-playing. However, you do get a short introductory video, with historical newsreel footage and captions which set the scene. After that, you can pick the opening mission from the list of those available for the campaign - just one, to begin with. Complete one mission and the next one in the sequence is added to the list. I think I'm right in saying that this happens regardless of whether you won or not. In my book, it's fine that you can't alter significantly the course of history, and good that you aren't stuck with having to replay unsuccessful missions, before you can progress to the next one.
The stock Steel Fury campaigns
Out-of-the-box, I believe SF provides three campaigns based on the Second Battle of Kharkov, as follows:
Friedericus 1 (Wehrmacht)
Soviet Army, Group South
Soviet Army, Group North To these, my modded install adds variants with different tanks. I opted to fight for the Wehrmacht. If I recall right, the stock Fredericus campaign starts you off in a Panzer IV with a short-barreled, low velocity 7.5 cm gun, only later getting the longer-barreled weapon with decent armour-piercing capability. If you're not 'well up' on your panzers, one grey panzer might look very much like another; but the Panzer IV below - an early Ausf. F model, with the short, stubby gun - exhibits the eight road wheels per side and the longer, boxier hull, which distinguish it from the 'six a side', more compact Panzer III, pictured below that again. And though the Panzer III's gun is a smaller calibre, in this case it has a much longer barrel and thus penetrates more armour. So...keen to start with a gun which would give me a fighting chance against the Red Army's finest, I opted to play the Panzer III version of the campaign, knowing I would get from the outset a long 5 cm gun - not as good as a long 7.5 but better than the short version of either weapon - better for dealing with tanks, at any rate. Especially big, bad tanks like these: Are you perhaps sitting there thinking 'What a wuss! Why doesn't he just man up and get on with it?' If so, I would suggest you might like to read this account of one of the Germans' most unsettling early encounters with the Klimenti Voroshilov heavy tank. Just one of them in this case, which for 24 hours single-handledly held up a German regimental combat team from 6th Panzer Division, meantime defying various attempts at its destruction. For all their poor ergonomics and comparatively crude finish, the Germans learned to show Soviet tanks like the KV and T-34 a healthy respect. Of course, the Soviets also still had lots of less formidable tanks, like different light tanks and the BT-5 'fast tank' below, with its US-style Christie suspension, speedy but lightly-armoured and with the ability to run on its road wheels instead of tracks, perhaps useful to save wear on approach marches but mechanically a wasteful concept. There might also be some British 'lend lease' tanks, I knew. The Soviet 45mm anti-tank guns were dangerous enough and their 76.2mm field guns had a good A/T capability. Weapons like this would be dug in and hard to spot, but a priority target for my tanks, in any attack. This was going to be no sinecure! The first mission!
I neglected to take a screenshot of the mission brief but the screens below show the ground and the disposition of our forces, soon after I loaded up the mission. Tanks - my platoon's Panzer IIIs - are the blue diamonds on the upper screenshot. The infantry's SPWs (Schutzenpanzerwagen, SdKfz 250 and 251 armoured half-track APCs) are the blue pointy-nosed rectangles, over to my left. In short, it's late May 1942 and my unit, Panzer Regiment 201 of 23 Panzer Division, is to support panzer grenadiers in a two-phase operation. First, we are to assist the grenadiers in destroying enemy defensive positions - marked in red on the lower map - on the nearer edge of a wood. Then in Phase 2, we are to sieze and hold the nearby village of Nepokrytoe, which is just off the top left of the map in the lower pic, a few hundred metres beyond the left-hand side of that big wood. .
As usual in SF missions and campaigns - though it's rarely made clear in briefings - you are in command of a platoon of tanks, usually three. The missions themselves tend to be for a company-level operation, a sort of self-contained or scaled down representation of a larger battle. This mission's briefing gave me a reasonably clear idea of our tasks and indicated that artillery and the Luftwaffe (which latter I saw no sign of) would be supporting us. As usual the mission briefing - 'orders' would be a better title - is in a structured format, perhaps Soviet as it's not British or US (which closely resembled and evolved into the standard NATO format, namely Ground-Situation-Mission-Execution-Service/Support-Command & Signals) and possibly not WW2 German either. I find the SF 'orders' a bit repetitive yet short on some of the detail a company commander would put into even a quickly-made plan and set out in his verbal orders to the participating platoon commanders, in the company Orders Group.
Nevertheless, having seen the briefing, it's always best to do a 'combat appreciation' before you start this sort of mission and so make a plan of how you intend to proceed. Aim - Enemy - Ground - Plan is an abbreviated format I was taught long ago (by an RM Commando officer, as it happened) and found quite useful. Should I go left, centre or right, was what it boiled down to, for Phase 1. The centre looked too devoid of cover and likely exposed to direct fire from all three marked enemy positions - a slow uphill run into the centre of a storm of enemy fire, targets on a two-way range. Looking at the lie of the land, I decided to risk taking the time to switch flanks and go left. Over there, I'd be able to make use of the dead ground the contours suggested should lie next to a road running towards the wood's left-hand edge; which road would also help me to maintain direction. Once over there, I could push up in comparative safety and from the flank, support the infantry by rolling up the enemy positions from left to right, concentrating on one at a time, instead of taking them all on at once. I could do much the same by going right flanking instead, but to get up onto the enemy's flank from a covered approach, I'd have to open up much too wide a gap with the panzer grenadiers. So left flanking it would be.
Unfortunately, in SF there's no way of discussing and co-ordinating plans with the commander of the infantry you're often supporting, or with other friendly forces. For example, you cannot temporarily assume command of the whole force and make a plan designed to integrate the fire and movement of tanks, infantry and supporting fire. Instead, your options usually are - either make and execute your own plan, or just conform to the infantry's movements, supporting them more closely and directly - tanks and infantry attacking on the same axis, if you will. I knew from past SF missions that the infantry tend just to rush straight at the objective. But I decided that this time, tanks and infantry would attack on separate axes. I accepted the risk that the infantry, motoring up to the Effective Fire Line in their nippy armoured 'battle taxis', would get ahead of me and maybe suffer serious losses before I was in position. But I like to play a more cautious, tactical game; if the grenadiers want instead to re-stage the Charge of the Light Brigade, well, on their own heads be it. C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre. ...to be continued!
The real battle
The First Battle of Kharkov in the Ukraine was fought in autumn 1941 during Operation Barbarossa, when the German 6th Army (later destroyed at Stalingrad) captured the city. The Second Battle - the one featured in SF - came in early summer 1942. Having thown the Germans back from the gates of Moscow over the winter of 1941-2, the Red Army's next major offensive came further south, in May 1942, with ferocious (and initially successful) concentric attacks aimed at retaking Kharkov. However, the Wehrmacht - including once more 6th Army - had been planning an attack of their own, code-named Operation Fredericus. With these forces, the Germans soon stopped and then rolled back and utterly crushed the Soviets, who had, it seems, overestimated their capabilities and underestimated those of the still-formidable Wehrmacht. A more durable and decisive victory over the Germans would have to wait…for about six months, as it turned out. The Red Army had learnt its lesson and the next big offensive, when it came, would see the tables turned and 6th Army annihilated at Stalingrad. But as far as the Second Battle of Kharkov went, the laurels belonged to the Wehrmacht. While SF does support campaigns - and I believe you can create a player profile for each - there's nothing like M1 Tank Platoon II's crew management facility. You will see your crew members moving around inside, and sitting at open hatches of, your tank. But they and the crews of your other platoon tanks ('wingmen' if you like) are annonymous. You can review each tank's/crew's achievements at the end of each mission - but that's about it. Each campaign is basically a sequence of scripted missions which, reasonably enough, follow the course of the actual battle, which you cannot change. So if you're rooting for the RKKA - the Red Army of Peasants and Workers - well, you can destroy all the fascists you like, but it's still gonna end in tears before bedtime. Sorry, tovaritch. Better luck at Stalingrad. Unit affiliation isn't a big thing with Steel Fury. Whereas the campaigns in Ultimation's classic Panzer Commander placed you from the start in a famous tank division (complete with formation insignia in the campaign selection screen) in SF you learn which unit you're with, when you see the first mission briefing. So it's all a bit anonymous, with no real sense of role-playing. However, you do get a short introductory video, with historical newsreel footage and captions which set the scene. After that, you can pick the opening mission from the list of those available for the campaign - just one, to begin with. Complete one mission and the next one in the sequence is added to the list. I think I'm right in saying that this happens regardless of whether you won or not. In my book, it's fine that you can't alter significantly the course of history, and good that you aren't stuck with having to replay unsuccessful missions, before you can progress to the next one.
The stock Steel Fury campaigns
Out-of-the-box, I believe SF provides three campaigns based on the Second Battle of Kharkov, as follows:
Friedericus 1 (Wehrmacht)
Soviet Army, Group South
Soviet Army, Group North To these, my modded install adds variants with different tanks. I opted to fight for the Wehrmacht. If I recall right, the stock Fredericus campaign starts you off in a Panzer IV with a short-barreled, low velocity 7.5 cm gun, only later getting the longer-barreled weapon with decent armour-piercing capability. If you're not 'well up' on your panzers, one grey panzer might look very much like another; but the Panzer IV below - an early Ausf. F model, with the short, stubby gun - exhibits the eight road wheels per side and the longer, boxier hull, which distinguish it from the 'six a side', more compact Panzer III, pictured below that again. And though the Panzer III's gun is a smaller calibre, in this case it has a much longer barrel and thus penetrates more armour. So...keen to start with a gun which would give me a fighting chance against the Red Army's finest, I opted to play the Panzer III version of the campaign, knowing I would get from the outset a long 5 cm gun - not as good as a long 7.5 but better than the short version of either weapon - better for dealing with tanks, at any rate. Especially big, bad tanks like these: Are you perhaps sitting there thinking 'What a wuss! Why doesn't he just man up and get on with it?' If so, I would suggest you might like to read this account of one of the Germans' most unsettling early encounters with the Klimenti Voroshilov heavy tank. Just one of them in this case, which for 24 hours single-handledly held up a German regimental combat team from 6th Panzer Division, meantime defying various attempts at its destruction. For all their poor ergonomics and comparatively crude finish, the Germans learned to show Soviet tanks like the KV and T-34 a healthy respect. Of course, the Soviets also still had lots of less formidable tanks, like different light tanks and the BT-5 'fast tank' below, with its US-style Christie suspension, speedy but lightly-armoured and with the ability to run on its road wheels instead of tracks, perhaps useful to save wear on approach marches but mechanically a wasteful concept. There might also be some British 'lend lease' tanks, I knew. The Soviet 45mm anti-tank guns were dangerous enough and their 76.2mm field guns had a good A/T capability. Weapons like this would be dug in and hard to spot, but a priority target for my tanks, in any attack. This was going to be no sinecure! The first mission!
I neglected to take a screenshot of the mission brief but the screens below show the ground and the disposition of our forces, soon after I loaded up the mission. Tanks - my platoon's Panzer IIIs - are the blue diamonds on the upper screenshot. The infantry's SPWs (Schutzenpanzerwagen, SdKfz 250 and 251 armoured half-track APCs) are the blue pointy-nosed rectangles, over to my left. In short, it's late May 1942 and my unit, Panzer Regiment 201 of 23 Panzer Division, is to support panzer grenadiers in a two-phase operation. First, we are to assist the grenadiers in destroying enemy defensive positions - marked in red on the lower map - on the nearer edge of a wood. Then in Phase 2, we are to sieze and hold the nearby village of Nepokrytoe, which is just off the top left of the map in the lower pic, a few hundred metres beyond the left-hand side of that big wood. .
As usual in SF missions and campaigns - though it's rarely made clear in briefings - you are in command of a platoon of tanks, usually three. The missions themselves tend to be for a company-level operation, a sort of self-contained or scaled down representation of a larger battle. This mission's briefing gave me a reasonably clear idea of our tasks and indicated that artillery and the Luftwaffe (which latter I saw no sign of) would be supporting us. As usual the mission briefing - 'orders' would be a better title - is in a structured format, perhaps Soviet as it's not British or US (which closely resembled and evolved into the standard NATO format, namely Ground-Situation-Mission-Execution-Service/Support-Command & Signals) and possibly not WW2 German either. I find the SF 'orders' a bit repetitive yet short on some of the detail a company commander would put into even a quickly-made plan and set out in his verbal orders to the participating platoon commanders, in the company Orders Group.
Nevertheless, having seen the briefing, it's always best to do a 'combat appreciation' before you start this sort of mission and so make a plan of how you intend to proceed. Aim - Enemy - Ground - Plan is an abbreviated format I was taught long ago (by an RM Commando officer, as it happened) and found quite useful. Should I go left, centre or right, was what it boiled down to, for Phase 1. The centre looked too devoid of cover and likely exposed to direct fire from all three marked enemy positions - a slow uphill run into the centre of a storm of enemy fire, targets on a two-way range. Looking at the lie of the land, I decided to risk taking the time to switch flanks and go left. Over there, I'd be able to make use of the dead ground the contours suggested should lie next to a road running towards the wood's left-hand edge; which road would also help me to maintain direction. Once over there, I could push up in comparative safety and from the flank, support the infantry by rolling up the enemy positions from left to right, concentrating on one at a time, instead of taking them all on at once. I could do much the same by going right flanking instead, but to get up onto the enemy's flank from a covered approach, I'd have to open up much too wide a gap with the panzer grenadiers. So left flanking it would be.
Unfortunately, in SF there's no way of discussing and co-ordinating plans with the commander of the infantry you're often supporting, or with other friendly forces. For example, you cannot temporarily assume command of the whole force and make a plan designed to integrate the fire and movement of tanks, infantry and supporting fire. Instead, your options usually are - either make and execute your own plan, or just conform to the infantry's movements, supporting them more closely and directly - tanks and infantry attacking on the same axis, if you will. I knew from past SF missions that the infantry tend just to rush straight at the objective. But I decided that this time, tanks and infantry would attack on separate axes. I accepted the risk that the infantry, motoring up to the Effective Fire Line in their nippy armoured 'battle taxis', would get ahead of me and maybe suffer serious losses before I was in position. But I like to play a more cautious, tactical game; if the grenadiers want instead to re-stage the Charge of the Light Brigade, well, on their own heads be it. C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre. ...to be continued!
Luftwaffe in Afrika - another day, another mission...
By 33LIMA,
Flying the next mission in FlatSpinMan's 'Afrika jaeger' campaign
It's been an eventful few days since campaign pilot Willi Jedermann arrived in North Africa! No sooner is he back at base after intercepting a Desert Air Force raid, than he's being sent aloft again, this time to catch an unidentified aircraft reported by shipping offshore. Here's the mission briefing, showing most but not all of the nicely-crafted text.
These briefings are one of the high points of FlatSpinMan's campaigns, often linking one mission with the next as only a scripted mission set can do. My only gripe is that militarily significant detail sometimes takes second place to dramatic effect - in this case, I'm not told I have a wingman! I also have a fresh aircraft, with a new 'skin' - these are I think by CannonUK and are another of the campaign's high points.
Launching the mission, I found myself at the front of the queue for take-off, ahead of a second 109 (who turns out to be flying the mission with me) and a couple of Ju 52 tri-motor transports. I checked my controls, held on the brakes and started up. I don't use 'Complex Engine Management' so I don't worry about warm-ups, prop pitch or radiator settings (though now that I'm getting more into Il-2, I might just make a start with 'CEM'). 1
I was in a bit of a hurry so didn't bother with flaps. Some right rudder, gradual opening of the throttle and locking the tailwheel as soon as I started to roll, kept me pretty straight and I was soon climbing away to the east.
Up came the landing gear then at about 1000 meters, I throttled back and waited till the other 109 had caught up...thereby confirming he was actually flying as my wingman. I was glad of the company; you never know what might be waiting out there. Opening up again, I turned to the north-east and resumed my climb, towards my patrol 'box', just out to sea to the north of my airbase. As you can see, my aircraft is still in basically European camouflage and markings; but as well as the white Mediterranean theatre rear fuselage band, she's had some attempt made at the application of desert camouflage - brown blotches on the nose and rudder and brown 'tiger stripes' on the fuselage sides; also perhaps some brown light overspray, to blend in the two-tone grey uppersurfaces. I'm fairly sure this and the other included 'skins' are based on photos of actual aircraft, many of which show just this sort of appearance, before proper local camouflage schemes were devised and applied to the Luftwaffe's aircraft in Africa. Looking out over the sea, I tried not to be distracted by the sight of the animated waves breaking on those long, alluring beaches and the crystal-clear water beyond, deepining into a typical, rich Mediterranean blue in the deeper water. Truly, on the highest settings, Il-2 '46's graphics can still be rather beautiful. And the stars of the show, the aircraft themselves, may have rather fewer polygons than the latest sims and no dynamic shadows, but inside and out, they still look great, especially clad in top-notch 'skins' of the sort that come with FlatspinMan's campaigns. Not far from the coastline I could see a pair of medium-sized ships, possibly the ones who had complained of the attentions of the suspect aircraft which I'd been sent up to investigate and if nececsary, despatch. A short disatnce behind them, to the east, was another, smaller vessel; evidently a warship, from her more slender beam. As we flew out to sea, I suddenly saw a cluster of grey puffs appear in the sky beside and behind us. Somebody down there was shooting at us! Doubting that poor target recognition was involved, I looked down for the culprit. It was the warship, and looking again, I could see that it was a submarine. She didn't look like a U-Boat or any Italian sub that I'd ever seen. From her stepped conning tower she looked rather like a US Gato class, but could equally have been British. Crash-diving while she could would have been a better tactic for dealing with aircraft, but perhaps she was keen to catch those two ships ahead, which she could not have done submerged and running on her electric motors. Perhaps the British sailors thought to scare us off, not realising that the Luftwaffe was now open for business in this theatre.
I circled around while considering my options. I didn't much fancy exchanging rounds with resolute and alert naval gunners. And there was still the business of that mystery aircraft, the main object of our mission and which might appear again at any moment. But some of the very shipping we depended on for our sustenance in Africa was clearly under direct and pretty immediate threat, about to be attacked by this submarine. Nothing else for it. I ordered the other 109 to attack shipping - padlocking the sub and ordering 'Attack my target' would have been more precise - and rolled in to attack. ...to be continued!
These briefings are one of the high points of FlatSpinMan's campaigns, often linking one mission with the next as only a scripted mission set can do. My only gripe is that militarily significant detail sometimes takes second place to dramatic effect - in this case, I'm not told I have a wingman! I also have a fresh aircraft, with a new 'skin' - these are I think by CannonUK and are another of the campaign's high points.
Launching the mission, I found myself at the front of the queue for take-off, ahead of a second 109 (who turns out to be flying the mission with me) and a couple of Ju 52 tri-motor transports. I checked my controls, held on the brakes and started up. I don't use 'Complex Engine Management' so I don't worry about warm-ups, prop pitch or radiator settings (though now that I'm getting more into Il-2, I might just make a start with 'CEM'). 1
I was in a bit of a hurry so didn't bother with flaps. Some right rudder, gradual opening of the throttle and locking the tailwheel as soon as I started to roll, kept me pretty straight and I was soon climbing away to the east.
Up came the landing gear then at about 1000 meters, I throttled back and waited till the other 109 had caught up...thereby confirming he was actually flying as my wingman. I was glad of the company; you never know what might be waiting out there. Opening up again, I turned to the north-east and resumed my climb, towards my patrol 'box', just out to sea to the north of my airbase. As you can see, my aircraft is still in basically European camouflage and markings; but as well as the white Mediterranean theatre rear fuselage band, she's had some attempt made at the application of desert camouflage - brown blotches on the nose and rudder and brown 'tiger stripes' on the fuselage sides; also perhaps some brown light overspray, to blend in the two-tone grey uppersurfaces. I'm fairly sure this and the other included 'skins' are based on photos of actual aircraft, many of which show just this sort of appearance, before proper local camouflage schemes were devised and applied to the Luftwaffe's aircraft in Africa. Looking out over the sea, I tried not to be distracted by the sight of the animated waves breaking on those long, alluring beaches and the crystal-clear water beyond, deepining into a typical, rich Mediterranean blue in the deeper water. Truly, on the highest settings, Il-2 '46's graphics can still be rather beautiful. And the stars of the show, the aircraft themselves, may have rather fewer polygons than the latest sims and no dynamic shadows, but inside and out, they still look great, especially clad in top-notch 'skins' of the sort that come with FlatspinMan's campaigns. Not far from the coastline I could see a pair of medium-sized ships, possibly the ones who had complained of the attentions of the suspect aircraft which I'd been sent up to investigate and if nececsary, despatch. A short disatnce behind them, to the east, was another, smaller vessel; evidently a warship, from her more slender beam. As we flew out to sea, I suddenly saw a cluster of grey puffs appear in the sky beside and behind us. Somebody down there was shooting at us! Doubting that poor target recognition was involved, I looked down for the culprit. It was the warship, and looking again, I could see that it was a submarine. She didn't look like a U-Boat or any Italian sub that I'd ever seen. From her stepped conning tower she looked rather like a US Gato class, but could equally have been British. Crash-diving while she could would have been a better tactic for dealing with aircraft, but perhaps she was keen to catch those two ships ahead, which she could not have done submerged and running on her electric motors. Perhaps the British sailors thought to scare us off, not realising that the Luftwaffe was now open for business in this theatre.
I circled around while considering my options. I didn't much fancy exchanging rounds with resolute and alert naval gunners. And there was still the business of that mystery aircraft, the main object of our mission and which might appear again at any moment. But some of the very shipping we depended on for our sustenance in Africa was clearly under direct and pretty immediate threat, about to be attacked by this submarine. Nothing else for it. I ordered the other 109 to attack shipping - padlocking the sub and ordering 'Attack my target' would have been more precise - and rolled in to attack. ...to be continued!
Help Us Prevent Cable Company F..kery
By Erik,
For the next 24 days we will be running a count down timer on all our pages to show you when the most important vote the FCC will ever make is made. If you haven't heard yet, the cable giants want to charge customers who stream movies, videos, play games, video chat, (basically everything the internet is great at) for faster speeds thereby undermining everything the internet stands for. This means not only do you pay for the speed of service you want at home but you will then have the choice of class of service which will cost more money.
We need you to get involved.
Click the link on the clock and fill out simple information like your name and the app will automatically send your elected officials an email on your behalf. You can read the letter or decide to contact them on your own, but this is something that we can't lose. If we do lose what we know as the open and free internet today will be forever changed. Don't let big business win!
Fight with us to defend net neutrality and all it stands for. If you need to know more watch this video and then click the link in the clock above.
Do it today we're counting on each of you.
Developer Interview: Into the Stars
By Skyviper,
CombatACE Developer Interview: Into the Stars
Generally aiding and abetting is a crime; however, in this case CombatACE is willing help out a few recent escape artists. No they didn’t escape from a federal prison; however, they did escape from traditional game development. A new company Fugitive Games is comprised of a few good men that have backgrounds with DICE, CAPCOM, and SCEA. They’ve worked on games such as Battlefield, Medal of Honor, MAG, Shadows of the Damned, and Lost Planet.
So what does this have to with CombatACE? Several weeks ago a video was posted featuring their new game Into the Stars. Many of you seemed interested in it and I thought you might like to hear more about the game from one of the developers. One, Mr. Ben Jones a Co-Founder to be a exact, has taken the time to chat with us about their new game.
Thank you, Mr. Jones, for taking the time to do this interview. To begin could you tell us, what inspired you and your team to break free from the big gaming companies and start making your game?
Getting a game greenlit at one of the bigger publishers is extremely difficult, but we all have ton of fun ideas that should be enjoyable, even if they aren’t destined to be $100mm blockbusters. By breaking away and forming our own team we are free to pursue these types of games and we simply couldn’t pass up the opportunity to do so.
What do you enjoy most about creating games (now that you’re free from the chains and shackles of traditional gaming)?
For me it’s the process and seeing your ideas move from paper to reality. When the game comes together around Alpha and you’ve got all the puzzle pieces in place, that’s when things are truly exciting. That and putting the game in a strangers hands for the first time and seeing how they react are my favorite aspects of development.
What inspired the creation of Into the Stars?
Several of us wanted to make an Oregon Trail type game and our Project Architect Marc really wanted to try that out in space. Once our Art Director got the 3rd person / Captain’s Chair functionality rolling we knew we were on to something. The space genre has had a lot of influence on us over the years, so it’s nice to be working in that universe.
How long has Into the Stars been in development and what are some the challenges your team overcame and still face today?
Development has been staggered as we rolled on at different times, but less than a year in total.
How will your game stand out from other space action games?
We feel the game sets itself apart by focusing on the Captain experience. Giving you that perspective and control is really powerful, and it’s going to be exciting to see how each new Captain approaches the journey.
Our star system is also quite dense as we’ve taken an action-oriented approach to world building. We don’t want you flying for hours on end twiddling your thumbs… there should be something around every corner to keep you engaged!
Your development team has experience with a lot of popular games. Not only that your game’s music is composed by Jack Wall. So with all these wonderful backgrounds meshing together, what can players expect from your game? What are some the features that will draw them in and keep them playing?
First and foremost they can expect a polished, highly replayable experience. We’re very focused on the core game and want to deliver a game that’s fun in both short burst and long play sessions. What I think will keep people coming back is the difficulty of the journey, the number of options presented the player and the simple joy of flying through a star system packed with life and opportunity.
What is the story you wish to tell through your game?
We want each Captain to write their own story. The game provides a beginning and an end, but what happens in between is completely up to you. Will you reach your ultimate destination and what will remain of your ship, crew and civilians when you get there? Each step of the journey will have an impact and play a part of your unique experience.
Will players be able to mod Into the Stars? If so will Fugitive Games have limits on what can and cannot be modified?
We’re focused on delivering the game at the moment, but having come from the mod scene I would love to see support for that community down the road. There were some amazing mods for FTL and we imagine they could take things in a direction we never thought possible.
Do you have anything you would like to tell your supporters?
We are incredibly grateful for the support we’ve received, especially because it gives us the ability to build the game to a high degree of quality, which is ultimately what everyone deserves.
Once again Mr. Jones thank you so much for taking the time to answer all of these questions
For those you interested in learning more about the company and thier title you're more than welcome to visit the link below for more information.
Il-2 '46 - North Africa!
By 33LIMA,
Another great Luftwaffe fighter pilot campaign from FlatSpinMan!
Having thoroughly enjoyed his Defence of the Reich campaign, I was keen to try out another of FlatSpinMan's German campaigns and picked this one, for a change of scenery - and climate! No more footering about over the cold waters of the North Sea for me, it's 'Off to Darkest Africa', as the song goes. This campaign is a sort of a prequel, featuring the same Luftwaffe fighter pilot, Willi Jedermann, as the Reichs Defence campaign. This is available from Mission4Today, which site is unfortunately down at the time of writing, so I can't post a link. Edit, 5 Feb '15 - Mission4today, the ultimate Il-2 resource, is back up and you can get FlatspinMan's campaigns here.
The campaign's first mission is a transit flight, simulating the arrival in force of the Luftwaffe, as part of the Deutsches Afrika Korps' 1941 deployment to prop up the Italian forces, after the latter's disastrous defeat at the hands of the British forces based in Egypt. Although there's no action, this mission is a nice scene-setter, featuting an air start with the player's Bf 109E-7, still in European theatre camouflage and carrying long-range tank, slipping in from the Mediterranean amidst a veritable horde of incoming German aircraft.
The scene at the airbase I was bound for was equally impressive, with the field positively awash with German aircraft of all types!
Apparently, our Willi has been posted to JG 27, which if course is the Luftwaffe fighter wing most closely associated with the war in the desert. However, before he can join his unit, Willi is scrambled at the head of a flight of three other pilots in transit, to intercept an incoming force of RAF bombers which is evidently hoping to smash up the tempting target presented by so much Luftwaffe aircraft and matériel sitting at this staging airfield.
The plane I ferried in wasn't available so I was allocated been given another machine, 'Yellow 5'. Like my last mount, this still in Eurpoean camouflage but with a white theatre fuselage band and yellow quick recognition markings in the form of yellow cowling and rudder.
My flight-mates were in similar interim markings, as you can see from 'Yellow 6' and 'Yellow 8'. As with FlatSpinMan's Defence of the Reich campaign, the inclusion of very high-quality 'skins', like these, is a nice feature.
Our brief was to patrol at 2500 meters over the sea, just north of our base, watching out for the raid we're expecting. Once airborne, headed east, I cleaned up my aircraft and climbed out to about 1000 metres, then throttled back, to let my three flight-mates catch up.
Climbing again, this time northwards out to sea, I could sea below and ahead a flight of tan-coloured biplanes, on the same course. Evidently, these were the Italian allies I'd been briefed would also be on this operation. Fiat CR 42s most likely, I thought.
As I watched, the Italians, who had been climbing fairly gently, suddenly pulled up into a much tighter climb. Had they seen something I hadn't? The answer was 'Yes!' At least two flights of larger aircraft were coming more or less directly at us, slightly high. This looked like it! I pulled up my nose in an effort at making a head-on pass to begin with, though from the high closing speed I quickly realised I would be just too late.
As the enemy ran in towards us, I saw that they were slim twin-engined bombers, and that a couple of tan-coloured monoplanes - more Italians, most likely - had beaten us to the punch.
I quickly gave the flight the order to attack and pulled up and around as the enemy - Blenhiems, they were - swept past. No sign of a fighter escort, that I could see. Time to get stuck in, before they hit our base, which they would reach in a matter of a very few minutes...unless we could stop them!
...to be continued!
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